About

My name is Angelica Martinez. I am a 29-year-old IT analyst currently living in central Maryland. I am also a certified death midwife through Earth Traditions, a trained singer, and a self-taught illustrator and painter. While I am familiar with ink and oil paints, most of my recent work is digital. Besides that, I am an amateur bookbinder, writer, seamstress, and photographer. I also have a passion for cooking, in particular Japanese cuisine. I am a first generation Filipino-American, the daughter of immigrants, and I am primarily of Chinese, Pacific Islander, and native Philippine ancestry. I speak English fluently and Japanese conversationally.

I am also a proud Pagan. I am the co-founder and a former Vice President of the Maryland, D.C., and Virginia-based Pagan group The Fellowship Beyond the Star, and I am the administrator and a contributor of The Longship. I also design and lead rituals for private and group events, use dice and pendulums for divination, and craft talismans for magical protection and empowerment. At present, I am a Norse and Anglo-Saxon Heathen, which means that my religion is a reconstruction of the pre-Christian beliefs of the ancient Germanic peoples. I am also a devotee of the Egyptian god Anubis, and I supplement my Heathenry with Religio Romana, or modern Roman polytheism. My spirituality is further influenced by the Philippine folk practices I learned as a child, my studies of Japanese culture and language, and the acceptance of death as our inevitable truth. I am an advocate of the death positivity movement and I seek to educate others on how to have a healthy relationship with death.

Why “The Barrow Home”?

barrow. noun. an ancient burial mound.

The barrow mound of ancient Scandinavia is the final resting place of kings and queens, witches and warriors. Within the barrow, beneath the earth, the dead lie surrounded by the trappings of their worldly lives: sacrifices that will aid them in the life to come. As a death worker, the barrow mound is my domain; the dead are my accomplices. We wait together in the dark, in the comfort of the grave. We wait for the coming spring. We wait for the next life.